


Useless Sentiment

by tarinumenesse



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Bruises, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Injury, Mental Health Issues, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Prompt Fic, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29353422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarinumenesse/pseuds/tarinumenesse
Summary: Byleth catches a glimpse of the reality of Dimitri's torment after she is injured in the battle at Ailell.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Dimileth Hot Flash





	Useless Sentiment

**Author's Note:**

> A loose interpretation of the Dimileth Hot Flash prompt "treating injuries."

Sylvain slipped, dragging Byleth down with him. She muffled a cry as she caught him, tightening her own arm around his waist as she took his weight, ignoring the sharpening of the ache in her side. It had only grown worse in the hour since they left Ailell.

“Sorry,” Sylvain said. He sounded like he was trying to be light-hearted, but his voice was laced with too much pain to be convincing.

“It’s okay,” Byleth replied as she adjusted his arm across her shoulders. “It’s not much further to the rear-guard. They’ll have a cart you can ride in, get the weight off your leg.”

Sylvain gave a broken smile. “I s’pose they’ll have a replacement for Reinhardt too.”

Byleth squeezed his hand where it hung over her right shoulder. She knew the bond cavalry units formed with their mounts. Sylvain would be devastated that he’d been forced to leave his horse’s corpse in the Valley—a deeper pain than the injury he’d suffered when Reinhardt fell.

“Useless sentiment,” came a gruff voice.

Byleth glared at Dimitri as he shoved past them, but Sylvain laughed.

“It’s true,” he said bitterly, watching the prince build distance between himself and the people who would follow him with long, furious strides. “No point caring about a horse, especially during a war.”

“If we’re going to stop caring, we may as well stop fighting,” Byleth replied, raising her voice. “Without useless sentiment, what are we?”

Dimitri didn’t pause or hesitate, though he must have heard her. On the contrary: he walked faster. Sylvain patted Byleth’s hand as though to soothe her.

“Don’t worry, Professor,” he said. “He doesn’t mean it.”

“You all need to stop making excuses for him,” Byleth snapped.

Sylvain pressed his lips together and looked away. Byleth bit her tongue against the throb in her side as they pressed on in silence, Sylvain’s left leg barely lifting from the ground.

It had been like this since the terrible battle at the monastery a month earlier, when Byleth had been forced to take the life of the Imperial commander to save him from Dimitri’s bloodlust. Her actions had enraged him to the point that he refused to speak to her directly, and now he acknowledged her only through sharp, snide, passing remarks. Yet she felt his gaze burning the nape of her neck. He seemed both irritated and enthralled by her existence.

A nightmare, Byleth thought as the rear-guard finally came into view. She had woken to a nightmare. A terrifying dream from which there was no escape.

With Sylvain safely transferred into a cart and Mercedes brought to tend him, Byleth was able to attend to other things as they journeyed back to Garreg Mach: sending messengers ahead to announce their return; discussing their forward strategy with Seteth and Gilbert; learning of the situation in the Kingdom from Rodrigue. She put aside her discomfort as it developed into a steady, consistent cramp. There was no quarter in this new reality, no time to stop and rest. Byleth could see the weariness in the eyes of her former students, her friends. All of them changed far too dramatically in the five years of her absence. Defeated by battle, by hardship, by the discovery that the prince and friend they admired was lost and broken. She needed to fix it. And so she kept moving—standing by Garreg Mach’s gate to see the soldiers safely in; taking up a ladle in the dining hall to serve the soup the monks had prepared; looking into the infirmary to see how Sylvain fared.

When Byleth stumbled into her room in the dormitories, long after dark, she fell back against the closed door and finally allowed her body to crumble. She remained upright only by the grace of the goddess as she whimpered and clutched her waist with the hand not holding the oil lamp.

After slumping there for several long minutes, Byleth lifted herself away from the door’s support and put the lamp down on her desk. The clasps of her breastplate clicked as she unfastened them, their noise deafening in the silence of the room. The armour dropped to the floor with a clatter, echoed by Byleth’s groan as she lifted her gambeson over her head.

The mirror leaning against the wall revealed the extent of the injuries she had been ignoring. From just below her breast-band to the line of her trousers, her skin was a sickening blossom of purple and blue. She had known the injury was bad the moment after she was hit by the mace—who wouldn’t, with the way her teeth had rattled and her legs quivered? But there’d been no time to stop and assess, not with the enemy bearing down upon them, the flames of the Valley tiring their forces. She’d sent her faith magic to work as she continued to wield the Sword of the Creator, sapping the depths of her reserves to keep herself in the fight. What was the addition of a little pain when her head was already spinning with the heat of the air and the screams of the dying?

Now, though, the day caught up to Byleth with a rush. Her legs folded beneath her and she hit the ground with a thud that pierced every muscle and bone in her body. With a quivering sigh, she let herself fall further until she was sprawling on the floor. Her head resting against the hard, wood floor, she thought wistfully of the pillow on her bed, just out of reach.

It was then that the door flew open. Byleth’s instincts took over where her body failed her and she sprung up into a seated position, reaching for her knife and yanking it from its sheath as she glared up at the intruder. Dimitri was still, unmoving on the threshold, his hands occupied with several small jars instead of a weapon. His hair, loose and messy, cast long shadows across his face, obscuring his expression, though Byleth once again felt his unforgiving stare upon her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, sheathing her knife again, but keeping it within reach.

Dimitri grunted in response, then entered the room and nudged the door closed with his foot. He seemed less intimidating and large, and it took Byleth a moment to realise it was because he was without his cloak. He had left off his armour as well; instead, he wore a wrinkled blue shirt and black trousers, garments that Sylvain had provided to replace the threadbare rags that were all he’d possessed when they found him. For several weeks he had refused them, distrusting kindness even from a childhood friend.

So Byleth remained ready and cautious as Dimitri knelt down before her. He let the jars he carried scatter out across the floor. Neither one of them spoke as he selected one and twisted off the lid. He dipped his fingers into the tacky substance within and reached out towards her.

Byleth flinched away. “What are you doing?” she demanded again as the scent of arnica wafted towards her.

Dimitri drew his hand back. He took a deep breath, then jerked his head towards her left side. 

“You’re hurt,” he said.

Byleth rested a hand over the bruise, as though she could cover it. A fruitless endeavour; its edges bleed out around her hand in the flickering light. 

“And why do you care?” she snapped.

Dimitri swallowed before casting the jar to the ground and looking away. His hair and eyepatch blanketed his expression once again as he wiped his hand on his trousers. The ointment smeared across the fabric, glimmering.

“You have done nothing but shun me ever since I came back,” Byleth continued, frustration welling up within her, burning her throat. “You shun us all. You don’t care about us or yourself, about your people, about Faerghus. What happened, Dimitri? Tell me. Tell me how I can help you, please, I—”

Her voice cut off as she choked on a sob. Dimitri winced, visible in the way his lips twisted as though in pain. But when he turned back, there was nothing in his face but the same hard, guarded, invulnerable mask she had grown familiar with throughout the preceding months.

“I need you,” he said flatly.

Byleth’s breath caught. Dimitri picked up the jar and scooped out more ointment. This time, Byleth didn’t move. He smeared the medicine across her bruise and she shuddered at its numbing coolness, at the agonising drag of Dimitri’s fingers across her skin.

“I need you to help me defeat Edelgard,” he continued under his breath.

Byleth grabbed his wrist and his touch froze at the curve of her hip. When their eyes met, Byleth slowly shook her head.

“Not like this,” she said.

Dimitri’s breath hitched. There was calm for a moment, then he wretched his hand from Byleth’s grip and pushed to his feet.

“Then you are abandoning me like all the rest,” he spat.

“Dimitri!” Byleth cried, surging up after him, catching his sleeve as he threw open the door. “I know this isn’t who you are. I know you are hurting. Please, talk to me.”

“You know nothing about me. I don’t need your help,” Dimitri growled. “And clearly, you don’t need mine. Tend to your own ills and I’ll tend to mine.”

“Dimi—”

He shoved her away, groaning, and lifted his hands to his face.

“Don’t!” he shouted. “Don’t call out to me so, don’t—”

Byleth retreated as his arms swung back down violently.

“Useless sentiment,” he whimpered. “That’s all it is. Useless.”

Tears welled in Byleth’s eyes as he spun on his heel and strode away, the night swallowing his hunched figure.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I can't write happy. Sorry.
> 
> And at the time this was posted, it was 11:20pm on Howland Island, so technically still the 10th February somewhere in the world!


End file.
